


Feathers

by SolarMorrigan



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Autistic Newt Scamander, Gen, I can't be the only person who thinks wizards would have great stims, Stimming, kink meme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 05:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9586889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: Sometimes it feels to Newt as though the world was made to overwhelm him. He learns how to deal with it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a fill for [this]() kink meme prompt. I don't really have any of the tie-in books for the movie or anything like that, so I scraped through the internet and then kinda... just filled in a bunch of stuff for Newt's life pre-movie. So I apologize if there are conflicting facts or backstories; this was mostly an excuse to give my headcanons on how Newt deals with the world around him

By the time Newt is five, he can tell the difference between griffin feathers, hippogriff feathers, and owl feathers just by touch. His mother is inordinately proud. His father doesn’t see the particular use of this skill but gives Newt a smile, anyway. Hippogriff feathers are Newt’s favorite. They’re long and stiff and rather heavy as far as feathers go, but still silky under his touch. He can sit for hours running his fingers up the rachis (the hard part in the middle, his mother told him what it was called) and brushing down the tapering ends of the barbs (the soft parts of the feather, his mother told him what those were, too). It’s the first thing he ever remembers doing when things start to feel… wrong. He’s never been able to explain what, exactly, is wrong; he’s tried, but he lacks the words. He can’t do more than say that the light is too bright, the sounds are too loud, that certain things just don’t feel good. Sometimes it’s too much and Newt can’t do more than cover his ears and beg for it to stop. But sometimes the feathers are just enough, and his mother has no problem in providing them.

When the time comes for Newt to attend Hogwarts, he finds that the entire experience is, in a word, _loud_. The voice of the deputy headmaster echoes off the walls of the Great Hall unpleasantly as he explains to Newt and all the other first years how they will be sorted, and the cheering- Merlin, the _cheering_. Newt is flinching from the back of the line from almost the first few sorted students—RAVENCLAW. GRYFFINDOR. GRYFFINDOR.—and by the time the deputy headmaster calls his name, Newt almost doesn’t notice because his hands have crept up to his ears again. The student behind him gives him a bit of a shove forward and Newt stumbles up to the stool, blushing and trying to in vain to just turn his hearing off. The deputy headmaster gives him a stern sort of look and places the Sorting Hat on Newt’s head and everything goes… quiet. The only sounds are Newt’s thoughts and the voice of the Hat, which is honestly not as disconcerting as Newt thinks it should be. The Hat’s voice is low and considering and it wonders about Ravenclaw— _quite a mind you have here_ —and about Gryffindor— _willing to stand up for the things you think are right_ —and about Slytherin— _cunning, very much so_ —but settles on Hufflepuff- _you’re kind at your core, there’s no doubt_. There’s more cheering but Newt tries to soldier through it without embarrassing himself this time, because at least they’re cheering _for_ him. He tries to find Theseus’ face at the Gryffindor table for something familiar to focus on, but there are so many people that everyone just blends together, so Newt just stares down at his plate and runs his fingers over the hem of his new robes and waits until they can head for the dormitories.

As it turns out, Newt never really gets used to the volume of the Great Hall, and he eats his meals as quickly as he can manage before getting a head start on his way to class or going somewhere more to his taste. The hustle and bustle between classes really isn’t much better and Newt becomes adept at finding passages that take him away from the general mass of students- though he can’t take credit for every route he takes; Theseus showed him the first and it remains one of Newt’s favorites even after Theseus has graduated. The library is nice sometimes, because the quiet there is enforced, but the quiet there can also become oppressive, leaving a gaping void that the noise in Newt’s mind tries to fill. Humming takes care of the internal noise handily, but is also frowned upon in the library, and his dorm mates don’t seem to appreciate it, either, so Newt finds himself studying out on the grounds.

The grounds actually turn out to be Newt’s favorite place to be. Everything there is perfect. It isn’t party to much human noise, but the sound of the wind in the trees, the slap of water on the shore of the lake, and the occasional call of one beast or another from the forest are more than enough to fill the silence. Nothing on the grounds minds if Newt hums to himself or even sings some words aloud. They don’t mind him repeating the more pleasing words of incantations as he practices, rolling the words over and over again in his mouth even without performing the spell itself. They don’t mind that he moves his wand through the motions again and again, sometimes only producing sparks, because the movement is nice and the sparks are good to focus on. The wind is never too much on his skin, the sun is always a pleasant warmth, and when it gets cold the chill is always just sharp enough- unfortunately, when it gets cold, Theseus finds him standing out in the snow and hauls him back inside because if Newt gets sick Theseus will never hear the end of it from their mother and could he please refrain from freezing to death? Even after Theseus graduates, Newt tries to keep in mind that people normally don’t stand out in the snow because they like the sensation and that he should probably avoid doing so for too long.

Leta tells Newt much later that he makes people curious, wandering the grounds as much as he does, standing at the edges of the Forbidden Forest and just looking in—he’s not just looking in, actually, he’s listening, and he’s learning to mimic the calls of the beasts there, because why should he limit himself to the just the pleasant sounds of human language?—or even getting caught heading out into the forest. People in the castle want to know what Newt is up to out there. Newt doesn’t really see why anyone cares, but if they’re so curious, they can come out and see for themselves what all the fuss is about. Leta calls him strange, but she’s smiling as she does it and so he’s fairly certain she means it in a good sort of way.

Things at school fall through. Newt tries not to be upset. He suffered enough while it was happening, what was the use in dragging himself over coals about it again? He does miss his wand, because the motions were nice and the sparks were nice and it was incredibly convenient to be able to repair things by waving it, but he doesn’t feel quite as bereft without it as everyone else seems to think he should. The hippogriffs at home don’t seem to care he doesn’t have a wand. None of the other beasts Newt starts studying seem to care he doesn’t have a wand. It’s inconvenient and he misses the feel of it in his hands, but it’s certainly not the worst thing that’s happened- or will happen.

Because the war happens. The war happens and Newt finds he holds together surprisingly well, considering the world has gone up in flames.

Everyone in the war needs coping mechanisms, and suddenly Newt isn’t alone. Suddenly Newt isn’t the only one who has to cover his ears or his eyes. Newt picks up feathers leftover from hippogriff squadrons and correspondence owls and runs his fingers over them for hours and no one seems to care. Newt never takes his weighted jacket off and no one seems to care. Newt’s fingers are almost always at the handle of his new wand—the one they’d insisted he get before diving into battle, and he thinks he actually likes this one better than his Ollivander wand—and no one seems to care. Everyone else is busy dealing with things in their own ways and Newt’s oddness doesn’t even register and it would be a nice change of pace if life wasn’t a constant explosion of noise and light and blood. Still, Newt has years of practice pulling away from over-stimulation.

Maybe he’s a little too distant, but it works.

It works well enough that he somehow earns a reputation for being solid and calm and, coupled with his prowess with any beasts he crosses paths with, Newt finds himself assigned to work with _dragons_.

Again, it would be a lot nicer if the world wasn’t constantly exploding, but Newt would take what he could get.

The dragonhide armor does wonders for calming the crawling of Newt’s skin, as long as he doesn’t think too hard about the dragon it must have come from. The scales of the real, living dragons are even more marvelous beneath his hands. The wind whipping his face as he actually _flies_ on the back of a dragon is a fresh, bracing sensation, the air the least tainted by blood and smoke that he’s breathed in ages. Newt hates sending dragons off into the air, not knowing if they’ll come back down alive or dead. He hates sending people off on the backs of dragons knowing they’re not half as steady as Newt is, that they’re still afraid of the dragons and that they don’t have the same levels of control. He hates seeing things go wrong, but he isn’t sure he likes seeing them go right. Murder is murder, and Newt spends a lot of his free time running his fingers over feathers and over dragon scales and staring into the bright fires of the camp.

Of course, the dragon program doesn’t last, either. Dragons are impervious to fire and many spells, but muggle bullets are surprisingly effective and once the opposing wizards learn this, Newt and his dragon fall to the earth and the dragon doesn’t rise again. Newt has already removed himself from his senses, made it so that nothing can overwhelm him so he can do his job, and he barely feels the ache in his chest and his leg and his neck and his head as he stumbles to the ground and checks his dragon over and realizes the beast is _dead_. Newt is therefore very confused when darkness begins to overtake his vision, and doesn’t understand what’s happened until he wakes up in a hospital with a healer standing over him and telling him how many bones he broke in the fall. He tells the healer that his dragon is _dead_. It seems like the logical response, somehow. Bones heal; death is permanent. The healer purses her lips and leaves him alone. Newt learns shortly thereafter that the dragon squadron his been officially disbanded; apparently the dragons were rather testy with the wizards at the camp when Newt wasn’t there to soothe relations and with their newfound vulnerability to well-placed bullets, everything became too much of a liability.

Newt goes home.

Theseus comes home when the war is over. He’s lauded as a hero, but he looks… hollow to Newt. Irritable. Overwhelmed. Newt knows the feeling.

He brings Theseus a hippogriff feather and when Theseus is done yelling about how “animals don’t fix fucking everything, Newt,” Newt grabs Theseus’ hands and guides them over the rachis and the barbs again and again and again until Newt can let go and Theseus’ fingers are moving on their own. Newt thinks it helps.

Theseus doesn’t say thank you, not out loud, but he starts to seem like he’s doing better. He finds ways to cope. He joins the auror program at the Ministry of Magic and he insists on a job for Newt, too. So Newt goes to work at the Ministry. The work is dull and his coworkers don’t like it when he hums in the office, but he keeps his desk full of feathers and his old knit scarf and bright, glinting objects to look at and his old pair of dragonhide gloves and he deals with things again. The world isn’t exploding anymore, but Newt finds the fight is ever the same for him.

The house elf relocation department gives way to an opening in the magical beasts department and that leads Newt to signing a contract with Augustus Worme to write a book about magical beasts- to educate people, to save the creatures that have been saviors to him his whole life. Newt packs his bags and leaves as soon as possible.

Newt travels and Newt makes friends and Newt makes homes for his friends and Newt finds he is the most comfortable he has ever been. The light in one part of his case is bright enough to cheer him up some days, and it’s dim enough in other parts that it doesn’t hurt on sensitive days. The temperature in the case varies from habitat to habitat and if one day Newt appreciates wet, tropical air and the next day he appreciates cold wind, well he has friends who like those things too.

His friends, his fantastic beasts. With fur and scales and leathery hides and _feathers_. Dougal doesn’t mind if Newt likes the feel of his plush fur, and the niffler doesn’t mind if Newt pets his smooth, slick pelt (although Newt does bribe him now and then, offering something shiny in return for his continued stillness), and even the occamys don’t mind Newt’s touch on their scales and feathers, so long as he minds their heads.

There are bad days, still. There are days when light is too bright, noise is too loud, touch _hurts_ , but Newt finds he doesn’t need to find the words to describe it because the creatures never ask. Sometimes they block out the offending light, or sit nearby and make soft, comforting noises, or sit so firmly on him that his skin stops crawling, and they don’t mind Newt running his fingers over them, again and again and again. Soft, smooth, rough, scaly, feathery, familiar… _right_.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted to [my tumblr](http://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/). Drop by and say hi if you want, I always love talking about headcanons and requests are more than welcome


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